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It was at the end of a long and gruelling watch that Lieutenant Bush, first officer of the HMS Hotspur, went for’ard to wake his captain and give his report. The gales that had caught up the little Hotspur had finally blown past, and a watery sun was rising behind pale gray clouds spitting rain as icy as the spray from the rolling sea.
Bush himself had been on near constant watch for thirty hours, only snatching bits of sleep, and his captain hadn’t fared any better; his shoulders almost drooped as he made himself known to the sentries and rapped on the cabin door before entering.
Doughty had been by, and the steward must have worked some magic, because although the galley fires had only just been stoked again there was a steaming pot of coffee on the desk in front of the captain. The smell of it was very pleasant, even to Bush who strongly prefered tea, but there was a sharp, medicinal tinge to the air in the cabin, and for a moment the first officer stood perplexed.
Then Bush’s tired gaze encompassed a small open pot of salve and a newly mended pair of stockings folded among the captain’s things by his cot, and he understood. That was one of the surgeon’s preparations, a balm made mainly of goose grease given out for the common complaint of injured feet-- mostly among the men, but the officers stood ankle deep in the same cold water as the hands, without the freedom to go barefoot, and Bush knew the smell of it. The mended stockings told the rest of the story; they must have worn through under the captain’s feet some time during the gale, and the working of stiff shoes on bare skin had cut through like a rasp.
“Sir? Report on the damages. The gale’s blown past.”
“Very good,” Hornblower rasped, pushing himself up on his cot. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand; Bush wondered how much sleep he managed to catch between the constant watches and pitching Hotspur, and if his captain’s sea sickness had returned. Not that he would ever let Hornblower know he thought after his captain’s weak stomach.
Hornblower winced when his feet touched the floor, and then immediately put on a stern face, glowering at Bush for the capital sin of seeing him in a moment of weakness. Bush fixed his gaze innocently on the bulkhead six inches to the left of his captain’s ear.
“Well? Report then, goddamn you,” the captain snapped, sitting back heavily.
Hornblower’s frustration was unfair, entirely unfair, but that unfairness was like a balm to Bush’s tired soul. He could absorb his captain’s fits of temper before they circled back to him, take them into himself where they could vanish, rather than overflow at the source. He’d observed even before Hornblower was his senior officer that no-one suffered more under the weight of Hornblower’s impossible standards than Hornblower himself. Better that he be cross with Bush for noticing that his feet hurt than be cross at himself for being human enough to have aching feet.
“The seas are choppy but they aren’t throwing her so hard, sir; we’ve only needed men at the pumps a half hour in the last watch. I had the topsails reefed and the staysail furled--” he went on with the specifics of wind, of broken spars and minor injuries, watching as Hornblower tested his feet and stayed sitting on his cot.
Without pausing in his report, he tugged the oilskin off his shoulders and folded it, wetside in, making a half-dry pad that he set at Hornblower’s feet. He took his hat off and set it next to the oilskin. As Hornblower watched with growing bewilderment, he wriggled out of his jacket and rolled the sleeves of his shirt back.
It was a pretty shocking breach of etiquette; if Hornblower and Bush were not such good friends-- no, if Hornblower had been anyone he loved less-- he never would have had the idea, let alone acted on it.
But it was Hornblower, and it seemed to Bush in his sleepy state that it was an entirely necessary course of action.
“Mister Bush,” Hornblower snapped, as Bush knelt on his folded oilskin. His own tired confusion lent his voice a flustered edge. “Explain yourself.”
“Sir?” Bush asked, innocently, as he took one of Hornblower’s slim feet in his hands.
Hornblower spluttered in protest, and Bush dipped his thumb into the pot of grease and smeared a dollop of the salve across the sole of his captain’s foot.
He could see where the skin was cracked and blistered-- just at the ball of the foot a raw patch told where Hornblower’s stockings had failed, and he trailed his rough fingers carefully over it, gliding grease across the tender new skin with a touch lighter than anyone would think he possessed.
Hornblower hissed, his ankle twitching in Bush’s grip, and Bush blew softly on the gleaming red skin.
“Bush,” Hornblower hissed. “William, stop this at once.”
“I don’t think I will, sir,” he said regretfully, and set his thumbs into the tense arch of Hornblower’s foot.
He didn’t hold with this sort of pampering in general. The officer who couldn’t handle a few blisters and cramping of the feet had no place in command, he thought privately. But Hornblower wasn’t any other officer; he was Bush’s brilliant captain, his dearest friend. A bit of bodily weakness was to be expected in really brilliant men; they were above the sort of rough standards that men like Bush were subject to.
Bush had never quite put it into words, the murky conclusions he had come to, but if he had it would be something like this: a man like Hornblower needed a man like Bush to be rough and strong for him, so that he could be brilliant without interruption.
He might even have gone on to the corollary; that a man like Bush would be lucky to find a man like Hornblower to be of service to.
Hornblower’s feet were as slender and beautiful as his hands, which Bush had long admired. He bent over them with reverence, working the cramps from the tendons of the foot and ankle, rubbing grease into the thirsty skin until each foot was supple and loose. His tired mind drifted, swirling around Hornblower’s lovely feet and ankles like driftwood in a wake; he felt quite peaceful on his knees.
“Mister Bush, I think that’s quite sufficient,” Hornblower said, his voice strangely calm.
Bush lifted his head, blinking at the light of the lantern that swung by Hornblower’s head. “Yes, sir. Your stockings, now?”
“Yes, Mister Bush.”
For this blessed moment they seemed to occupy a different world, a small distant place far from the navy. Outside of the cabin the world went on as they both knew it to, and outside of the cabin it was not the place of the first officer to sit reverently on his knees and dress his captain like a servant.
Inside the cabin, Hornblower’s gaze was dark and Bush’s turned his tired face up to him like to the sun. Bush held the first stocking still for Hornblower to poke his toes into, and unrolled it up his slim calf. He set the seams straight and smoothed his hands up the cheap silk, ensuring that it lay flat against Hornblower’s skin.
Hornblower sighed, and began to lower his foot.
“You’ll only get it wet again,” Bush admonished, and leaned forward, lifting Hornblower’s foot to rest against his shoulder.
After a moment, Hornblower seemed to accept this strange footstool; he sank his weight against Bush’s shoulder, lifting his bare foot for the other stocking. Something as soft and slippery as Hornblower’s stockings seemed to settle around Bush’s head, muffling the sounds of the ship and the deck, as warm as the heat from the fresh fire.
Every inch of stocking that unrolled onto that tender skin seemed like a burden; every inch brought the moment closer to its conclusion, and Bush lingered wistfully over it, smoothing the silk up once with his palms and then again with his knuckles, lest his rough calloused fingers catch on the thin fabric.
“Very good, then,” Hornblower said quietly.
“Yes, sir.”
The impulse of a moment seized Bush, and he turned his head, before Hornblower could withdraw his feet and stuff them in his shoes; he kissed the silk-covered calf, the sharp shin, blessed the leg that rested on him.
Hornblower drew in a breath. “William--”
They both heard the footsteps outside, making a line for the captain’s cabin through the other tromping feet and noises of an active ship, and in a flash Bush was on his feet, jacket and hat on and oilskin over his arm, and Hornblower had jammed both feet into his shoes and flung himself from cot to desk chair.
Doughty bustled in a moment later with the captain’s breakfast, frowning at the clean coffee-cup and then at the pot of grease still on the floor next to the captain’s cot.
“Eggs, sir? It’s a lovely morning.”
“I don’t see what the morning has to do with eggs,” Hornblower grumbled. “You’re dismissed, Mister Bush.”
“Sir.” Bush touched his hat and let his weary legs lead him out. His cot seemed to call for him, a siren song of sleep, but he had one last thing to see to.
He lurked for another moment outside the cabin, stood in the shadows where the weak light could not make it down the hatch, oilskin heavy in his arms, until he caught Doughty on his way out with the breakfast things.
“Mister Doughty, a word with you,” he said.
To his credit, Doughty did not start, coming to a such a smooth stop that Hornblower’s breakfast dishes did not even rattle on their tray. “Yes, sir?”
“The state of his shoes, man. Did you see how they were cracking? They’ll wear right through his stockings.”
“I know, sir. But he wouldn’t give the word,” Doughty said, with only the very hint of disapproval in his voice. Even that hint could have been seized on if Bush wanted to; Bush didn’t want to. Doughty was a good steward, but he was new aboard the Hotspur and needed to understand about the captain.
“He’s too busy to give orders about every single thing.” It was not precisely a euphemism or a code; Bush had no brain for irony. It was how he saw things; Hornblower kept himself too busy to ask for what he needed. Whether that was because he was too busy with his duties or because he felt he needed to do some sort of penance, Bush didn’t care; he needed people to look after him either way. “So you get a layer of beeswax on the inside of those shoes and pad the heel with oakum to keep it from slipping.”
“Yes, sir. I did the same for Captain Stevens as his steward.”
There was the faintest hint of stress in the last word. A question. Well, on other ships the first officer would take less of an interest in the state of the captain’s shoes; Bush himself would give less than a thought to any other captain’s shoes. This was Hotspur, though, and he didn’t feel he had to explain himself.
“He’s not like Captain Stevens. He’s not like any other captain you’ve served under. He may not be as sturdy, you understand, but he’s sharp as a tack and he’ll see you right if you stand by him, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. I think I do, sir. The crew--” Doughty stopped himself before he could continue his unguarded speech, but it was too late. Bush crossed his arms.
“The crew what, Mister Doughty?”
“Well, they say the same. He’s like Nelson, they say. Not. As you say, not sturdy,” Doughty said, taking refuge in Bush’s own phrasing. “But brilliant. A cleverer captain than we should know again.”
Bush nodded approvingly. “That’s so, Mister Doughty. You just see he doesn’t have to worry about his shoes. Don’t wait for him to mention, just see to it.”
“I will, sir.” Doughty seemed to have decided not to take offense at an officer telling him how to do his work. Not even privately, which was the only way a man in Doughty’s position could safely do. He seemed curious, but not unhappy.
“Good man.” Bush clapped him on the shoulder, shifting the weight of his oilskin to one arm. He thought for a moment that Doughty’s coat seemed oddly soft, realized a second later that it was his own hand that was uncommonly soft-- the hard calluses had become pliant with the application of foot salve. He still smelled faintly of goose grease and whatever herbs the surgeon had muddled into the mix.
Doughty sniffed, and frowned. Bush withdrew his hand, remembering that it must have been Doughty who fetched the salve for Hornblower, and might have come to a conclusion as to why Bush’s hands smelt of it.
“Is there something the matter?” he asked, steadily.
“Sir. No, sir, there isn’t.” Doughty’s eyes searched his face in the gloom, and then the seaman nodded firmly. “I’ll look after him, sir. I understand.”
Bush looked hard into his eyes for a moment, and Doughty met his gaze without wavering. Something passed between the two men, and was gone.
Bush nodded.
“About your business, then.”
“Yes, sir,” Doughty replied instantly, as steady as the tray he held, turning and departing so smoothly, no one would know he had ever been detained.
Then, with a clear conscience, Bush could finally make his way to his cot, sprawling blissfully across it, and sleep-- sleep with the scent of balm in his nostrils and the remembered warm weight of slender feet propped on his shoulders, as content as a man could be.